Have you seen this? The Toronto Craft Alert is organizing a giveaway. All you have to do to enter (and you don't need to live in Toronto) is post a picture of a long delayed project (see below) to their flickr group and label it "before". You can get extra entries (up to 9 altogether) for doing various other things like signing up for their newsletter or posting about the giveaway on your blog (that would be this entry) or even finishing your project (that's worth 5 entries all by itself).

The goodies offered as a reward for all this hard work are pretty awesome. Everything from a tea cozy to handmade paper to yarn and a fake moustache. The deadline to enter is March 16th and all the instructions are on their site.


Here is my entry: A cute yellow dress I cut out and intended to wear last July. It's been in this ziplock bag since October when I tried to finish it for the second time. It's from the same pattern as this dress and this shirt (Simplicity #3835). Each time I've made it before I've found it a delightfully quick and simple project - I don't know why this one is taking so long but it would be great to wear it this spring. This time I'm making the long sleeved version with the little pockets. It should be really cute (if I ever get it finished).

Pattern: Scaruffle by Bess Haile from The Knitter's Book of Yarn
Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta, idena Mohair Lux (60% Mohair, 40% Akryl, 50 g = 180 m) [sent to me from Norway]
Size: As written
Yardage: 1 skein
Needles: 3.00 mm and 7.00 mm bamboo circulars

This is a great pattern and I know I will be making it again. It shows off a special skein of yarn so well and goes really quickly. My gauge was a little tighter than the pattern suggests because I decided to go with the needles I had on hand instead of waiting for new ones to arrive (I should have thought that through a little more) so my scarf is a little smaller than the one in the book and the garter stitch has a little more structure. It still drapes very nicely and is currently decorating the hooks in our front hall (it's just too cold to wear it outside yet).

The colour of this yarn is really difficult to photograph. If my exposure is pretty good the yarn looks black; if the yarn is colourful the rest of the photo is over exposed. In real life you can see the colours clearly when it is bright out but not quite so well when it is dark.

A bit of yellow at work. This is an origami flower Joyce left on my desk a while ago.  I like the way it brightens up my empty tea cup.